Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for September, 2008
US Bailout Fails. Market Falls. Seatbelts Fastened.
30 September 2008
The thing about hosting a breakfast program in Australia is that we, along with Tokyo, are the first big market to open every day.
So with the US700 billion dollar rescue package failing a few hours ago, we will be the first ones outside of the US to feel the effect.
The Futures tell us that it won’t be pretty. Expect a seven percent fall, at least initially. This was bound to happen. I’ll give you a apocryphal note to explain why. Yesterday, almost as an afterthought, I asked one of our market analysts on the program what would happen if the US Congress changed its mind and refused to agree to the rescue (or ‘buy-in’ as the US politicians tried, hopefully, to call it). The analyst laughed a little and said it would be disastrous. The little laugh was indicative of her view that the rescue package was a certainty to pass.
She’s not laughing now.
There will be plenty of panic in financial circles right now. Advisors are seeing their clients’ portfolios lose real money minute by minute.
My stockbroking neighbour Charlie, who has been lamenting the stockmarket of 2008, will be suffering, I know. But even though his head gets lower everytime I see him in arriving home late from work, his advice is always the same: don’t get out of the market; this is a terrible time to pull out shares. They have lost 30% or more of their value this year, so pulling them out of the market when they are at their low ebb is hardly the most bright financial move. (“Hey guys, let’s invest in some companies. When they lose heaps of value, we’ll pull them out!!”)
The bottom line always has to be that if the economy is strong, and most of ours in the Asian region are strong, and if we are investing in reasonably strong companies, then be like the Doors’ Jim Morrison and be Riders on the Storm.
There may be bad to come, but there’s plenty of good to follow that.
– Phil
Scarlett Johansson Gets Married and the World Goes Crazy
29 September 2008
Scarlett Johansson was pretty good in Lost in Translation. She was as bright and refreshing as Bill Murray’s character was perfectly played as jaded and disillusioned. I think it was that point in her career when Scarlett became the world’s darling, kind of like how Sandra Bullock won our hearts the moment she tripped over on the tarmac in Miss Congeniality (the first one, the good one).
But you’ve got to ask, why is her wedding such a big interest thing today? She’s married Ryan Reynolds who, we are told in all the news bulletins is thirty-one and Canadian..
To be honest, I thought Scarlett was already married. Or divorced. Or a mother. Or something.
For those thrilled by the nuptuals of someone they don’t know, I have to ask you, what is her latest film? If you know that, then maybe you will be enough of a fan to really be thrilled by the fact that she’s thrown a garter.
There really is a fixation, perhaps on obligatory fixation in the media to announce weddings, engagements, rehab check-ins, affairs and divorces.
Does it really matter? Paul Newman died on the weekend, and Hollywood press did what what it does best: celebrated the life of a great actor. He and his wife Joanne Woodward was not a couple that brought gossip. Reporters, out of respect, stuck to reporting their work, not trying to find personal stuff to fill the pages of the glossies. It was refreshing.
Personal lives can be interesting (see Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears), but they are just people who do a job for a living. Maybe we should just think, for a second, about how gossip pages and TV segments, are taking away from that. Amy Winehouse is a great singer. Why should be care about the rest of her life.
Or even more: why should we even be talking about the rest of her life. It’s her business. Really.
Meanwhile, I’m going off to see what Scarlett Johansson’s latest film is.
– Phil
Kevin Rudd: World Stage Strutter.
26 September 2008
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In fact I thought it rather funny when the Opposition leader here in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, had a go at Kevin Rudd for going on an overseas trip just as the world financial crisis was happening.
Err. The PM was going to New York, which although not the world’s largest trading stock exchange anymore, is the centre of the financial crisis. In other words, the PM is being ciritcised for a going to New York when there’s a huge problem in New York. Not a great choice of criticism maybe Mr Turnbull. It’s a bit like criticising Paul McCartney for going to one of his own concerts.
The PM had some other important things to do while in the Big Apple. Apart from monitoring the progress of the talks for George Bush’s financial rescue plan, Kevin Rudd was trying to convince world leaders to do more on climate change. After all, climate change will eventually have a much bigger effect on world security than any recession.
But his problem was that world leaders could barely be fit into his schedule. The PM and his foreign minister were so surrounded by celebrities that there was hardly any room for world leaders. There was actor Michael Douglas. There was Bono. There was Bill Gates. There was Muhammad Ali. he even mixed it with a former political hotshot, Henry Kissinger. The PM did manage to squeeze in a photo opportunity with UN boss Ban Ki-Moon in amongst the fun people, having the obligatory shake hands and smile at the camera photo.
It’s good to know though that our prime minister managed to convince Bono on climate change.
– Phil
Singapore F1 Grand Prix. Under Lights. Under Rain?
25 September 2008
I can already hear the titters of the the ghosts of the plantation owners in their white suits sitting in Raffles.
Tomorrow night is the start of a new era on Formula One racing. Singapore will host the first night races for the F1. Qualifying on Friday night, leading up to the big race on Sunday night. The fastest cars in the world will wind around the grand old streets in Marina Bay in what will also be Asia’s first F1 street race.
The noise though. Boy, the noise.
I remember when I first came to Melbourne. I was riding my bicycle to work one Sunday morning, and as I rode across a wide road, I had the scare of my life. The roar of car engines came from my left. I almost fell off the bike, so sure I was that the cars were only metres from me.
But no. It was simply that this wide street led directly to the Albert Park GP track, and that particular moment was when cars rounded the corner nearest to where I was, nearly three kiloetres away. And it was still THAT loud.
It will be loud Singapore, and if the owner of the Force India team is right, it has a good chance of raining during the GP and qualifying sessions too,because, he says, it ALWAYS rains at night in Singapore.
For the last two years we have broadcasted from the Melbourne GP, and had great fun doing it. Why not. We’ve spoken to Miss World Australia. So there’s the glamour. We’ve spoken to drivers. There’s glamour too, because these guys are impossibly good-looking. Not to mention the track girls. One suspects that at least some of them are more than what nature gave them, but what the hey.
(By the way, we only did the broadcasts after my conpunctions about supporting car racing in this time of global warming were allayed by guarantees that the GP plants more than enough trees to offset the emissions).
So it’s a big congratulations to Singapore. I hope it works out well for them. Shrinking revenues for the Australian race means that it is simply the tourist dollar that makes it viable here. But again that was what it was always about.
And as I said, it was fun, and who can’t use a bit more fun in their lives.
Raffles Boulevard will never be the same though.
– Phil
Barack Obama. A Man Who Knows What To Say.
24 September 2008
The news this morning that Barack Obama has pulled ahead of his Republican rival John McCain surprised me, I have to say.
It’s often been the case that when there is financial worries, voters usally (a) go for the more conservative alternative and/or (b) tend to stick with the incumbent. In both cases this would mean the Republicans in the U.S would be the favoured option.
But no, it seems that the financial crisis is pushing America towards the untried young Democrat.
A quick look at the recent words of Barack Obama might give a clue as to why this might be happening.
It didn’t take long to find excerpts from a media conference that Barack Obama gave after George Bush’s 700 billion dollar rescue plan was announced.
One line from the conference jumped out at me: “This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives.”
That is what you call a zinger. In one sentence he has hit a bullseye with middle and struggling America. He wasn’t being overly negative, but he was being on the side of people who feel (almost certainbly rightly) that corporate excess and incompetence has led the U.S. and the rest of ther world down this not-so-merry path of stockmarket flurries.
You don’t need me to tell you that in the U.S. welfare is a huge issue. Michael Moore made a large part of his fortune by documenting the problems with the health system in the States. Amercians went to see it in droves.
By tapping into this fixation on welfare, Barack Obama, with a simple one-line sentence, has focussed view on corporate greed and the most amazing spending plan in history to save the big wigs.
Of course George Bush’s plan aims to save more than just members of the gazillion-dollar-club. The idea is to keep financial institutions afloat, because if they go down, then they will take a lot of small income earners and their savings with them. But as our financial correspondents tell us, repeatedly, the action will not be a long term fix. Bad companies are going to fail eventually, bailout or no bailout, and George Bush’s succesor will be left with the bill. And what a bill it will be.
But it is interesting how sometimes in American politics one line can be so important in history:
You have nothing to fear but fear itself (FDR)
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country (JFK)
Barack Obama’s words are yet to be as inspirational, but boy are they well chosen.
– Phil
