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China places a ban on imports of coal, iron ore, wine and other products from Australia. China's largest imports from Australia are in coal and iron ore of $87 billion. China has targeted Australian exports that can be alternatively sourced or are produced domestically such as coal. Australian coal exports to China declined by 90% in 2020 over the prior year. China is the largest destination for Australian wine exports of $1.2 billion. Australia's call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and new laws to curb foreign interference have resulted in deteriorating relations with China.

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US Defense Spending charts as percentage of GDP since 1929 startling fact seen in this chart of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis- that in 2026 we are seeing 1929-1937 levels of military spending to GDP ratio of 2-3% just before it jumped to 45% in 1940 in World War II. It is a cautionary tale not to spend too little (2-4% is a danger point), as lack of military modernization means a lot more spending soon after, almost 10 times that- 10 times 4% or 40%. Message to the US is not what Starmer and company are saying in Europe- it is that don't invite the existential crisis of 1940 again for western (US, EU, Canada, UK) and eastern democracies (India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia) by ignoring costs of military modernization. And 2-4% of GDP for military spending is not going to do this.

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Australia's Productivity commission states in a report that 4 large banks control 75% of the lending, deposit and credit card business leading to higher fees for consumers. Profit margins of Australian banks are some of the highest in the world. The report says stability should not be the only goal for banks.

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Startling fact seen in this chart of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis in the adjoining article next to this one- that in 2026 we are seeing 1929-1937 levels of military spending to GDP ratio of 2-3% just before it jumped to 45% in 1940. It is a cautionary tale not to spend too little (2-4% is a danger point) as lack of military modernization means a lot more spending soon after, almost 10 times that- 10 times 4% or 40% in World War II.  Message to the US is not what Starmer and company are saying in Europe- it is that don't invite the existential crisis of 1940 again for western (US, EU, Canada, UK) and eastern democracies (India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia) by not doing military modernization. And 2-4% of GDP for military spending is not going to be enough to do this.

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House prices that went up by 532% in Australia, 602% in Canada since 1990 now face the prospect of decline by 20 or 30% after sharp increase in interest rates by central banks in the US and other countries. US prices were up 289% since 1990 by comparison. The Fed's moves could also lead to a decline in US home prices as mortgages become costlier. As many mortgages are not fixed in Australia and Canada the costs can increase sharply with rising rates.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve's role as backup lender increased with the pandemic. The U.S. central bank lent half a trillion dollars to counterparts overseas representing most of the emergency lending at the time in 2020. It eased a dollar shortage globally, helped stop a market selloff, and continues to support global markets in 2020. The Fed is now the global source of dollar funding, which builds the role of the U.S. currency a the dominant currency. Countries that benefit from the Fed are Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Britain, Japan and European Union countries. On March 31 the Fed launched a program that let 170 central banks around the world borrow dollars against their holdings of U.S. Treasurys adding confidence.  To understand the dollar's dominant role about 88% of 6.6 trillion dollars in currency trades taking place daily involve dollars according to BIS. By end of 2019 U.S. dollar denominated debt securities and cross border loans reached about $27 trillion up from about $17 trillion in 2010. All the talk of having another reserve currency by other central banks has not happened. ...

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Baer and Zuckerman give this friendly account of how a law student from Melbourne found himself a single Australian in New York. He went on to join Morgan Stanley and took over in 2010 at the height of the faulty mortgage financial crisis. His patient attitude and quiet demeanor  stemming from growing up in a family of 10 children helped him take on the responsibilities at the bank when banking was getting a bad name for its responsibility in causing the financial crisis. His mother was a nurse, his father an engineer, both underpaid and stressed professions compared to banking which has caused crisis after crisis in an effort to get outsize rewards. This Australian American later told colleagues, that around the dinner table his middle class parents discussed current events creating an interest in reading and world affairs. We get this as it was our own experience. What has he to say then about both the absence of this middle class today in the way it was, and more than two thirds of American eight graders lacking proficiency levels in reading, 75% lacking proficiency in Civics and History shown in NAEP tests? Not much different in Australia or the British Commonwealth too. His name James Gorman, who now retires at the age of 64. How could he give back by supporting a Movement for Global Literacy, what we have also on this site? Lyrarc.com acts a driver for this much needed literacy in reading comprehension, history and civics. ...

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Home prices are surging in Australia in 2015, with home prices in Sydney up about 39% since June 2012, according to CoreLogic RP Data. As a multiple of annual income home prices in Sydney are at 9.8, Melbourne 8.7, and Wollongong near Sydney 7.5, compared to 6.1 for New York and 8.5 for London, according to a 2015 affordability survey by Demographia. Australia's surging home prices are happening just as the mining boom that powered its economy is winding down and unemployment is up to 6.1%. Interest rates are down to 2.25%, and low interest rates with speculative purchases are likely to fuel the market up further, say experts. About 40% of home loans approved in Feb. 2015 were to investors, increasing from 31% in 2009, according to official data. According to Australia's Reserve Bank the wealthiest 40% of the population have 75% of the debt. This surge when the economy is feeling the effects of the slowdown in China, and the rest of the world is cutting down on debt, puts Australia in uncertain territory....

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Australia is seeing strong results from apickup in CHinese demand, the stimulus of 67 billion Australian dollars ($60.58 billion US), and investment including A$43 billion natural-gas project of Chevron Corporation. As a result the unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in September from 5.8% in August 2009. Australia has the third highest fiscal stimulus package 2008-2010 as a percent of GDP at 4.6%, after the US at 5.6%, S. Korea at 4.9%. As aresult Australia's central bank is the first of the G-20 to raise interest rates lifting it to 3.25%.

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The Sanjhi panel is art from Uttar Pradesh showing Krishna on the banks of the Yamuna in Gokul. This panel was a gift from prime minister Modi to president Biden at the Quad meetings in Tokyo. Art from Gond in Madhya Pradesh and Kutch art were part of the gifts to Mr. Albanese the prime minister of Australia, and Mr. Kishida the prime minister of Japan.

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A survey of immigrants all over the world asked about their new living standards shows Mexico at the top with Taiwan, Portugal and Spain. And Kuwait at the bottom. Surprise is that New Zealand ranks next to Kuwait at the bottom. The reason is the high cost of living and jobs not paying enough, fewer opportunities, a growing rich poor divide. New Zealand ranks high in the natural environment and climate, yet the cost of living is too high in relation to salaries. New Zealand ranked below global averages in worklife- in feeling fairly paid for work, seeing purpose in work, or liking workhours. By comparison Australia ranks ninth from the top- for the economy, compensation and work hours. 

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Canada is joining a club of nations that are dependent on exports of raw materials to China for growth- Australia, Brazil, Malaysia and Peru. This means that Canada's central bank takes its cues from demand in China, India, Korea and other emerging economies when it sets rates. With Canada's growth at around 3.1% in 2010, Canada's central bank is expected to increase rates gradually even as the U.S. keeps its rates low.

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Fears about a property price bubble in China bursting with the central bank not able to control the economy. Increasing fears that China may not be able to control the bubble. Other countries where bubble effects are taking place: Canada where housing prices are accelerating, Brazil with expected GDP growth of 5.8% and "hot money" pouring in, India where inflation has reached 15% and $92 billion of foreign investment in Indian stocks and bonds, Australia with its hot mining sector with trade connections to China, South Korea with growth approaching 5% and high rates of household debt. GDP and property prices increased by 11% in China in the 1st quarter of 2010. Many of these economies have connections with China, including Brazil and Australia with commodities sectors dependent on China.

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How the Australian Central Bank raised rates starting in May 2002, with the key lending rate at 5.5 % in July 2005, compared to 3.25 % in the USA. The idea was to control the housing bubble which has scaled back, with the Australian economy growing at 2% and this growth coming mostly from the commodities demand in global markets. Meanwhile the US central bank under Greenspan is holding onto the view that its hard to tell when a bubble is occurring, and it would hurt a healthy economy to raise rates to cool developing bubbles. Australia's central bank holds onto the other view that it is wiser to act now before the bubble gets out of hand. Governor MacFarlane of the Australian central bank said in aspeech in early 2003 that a "scaling back" of household borrowing and property development would be in "the longer term interest of the Australian economy." And the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, instituted a 2.25% tax on the sale of investment properties. This move discouraged speculators who bought and "flipped" properties for quick profits. By early 2004 a glut of downtown apartment units emerged in Melbourne, and the bubble began to scale back. During the height of the boom consumer spending was growing by more than 6% ayear, in 2005 this has slowed to 3.5% a year. Because of commodity demand, Australia was able to see growth at 2%, and still avoid the longterm effects of a bubble in housing markets by scaling them back. Patrick Barta closes with a reference to Texas in the 1980's and early 1990's, and Southeast Asia in 1997, when housing prices and the economy went down in tandem hitting employment in the oil and banking industries in Texas. In the case of Asia hitting the economies of some Asian countries with the fall of their currencies. He refers to the overstretched US consumer with load of debt, and the possibility of housing and the economy going down in tandem in the USA, similiar to what happened in Texas and Southeast Asia....

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The tensions that exist in Australian society, as a result of the large Chinese investments and imports of infrastructure building commodities such as iron ore, natural gas and other commodities. Australia's Pilbara region in the northwestern part of the country, has become one huge quarry for China, as an estimated 1 million tons of iron ore raw material is loaded onto 2 story high trucks each day- with automated driverless trucks system being implemented- and shipped by 2 mile long trains to waiting ships on the coast. Australians remember this done on a smaller scale in the 1980's by Japan. At the time Japan brought in Japanese workers. The same is true today but on a bigger scale, with China bringing in workers with lower pay. The concern now is what it was then, as one local leader put it- are we going to have towns with mines or mines with towns, he asked. The mining companies are looking at it purely as a commercial venture, and not investing in the towns. The towns now fear they will find the boom times gone someday and nothing tangible to show for it, no schools, hospitals and no infrastructure. And because the mining project companies fly people in and out, the 8000 aboriginal people in Pilbara- the original people of this land- see little of the mining expansion's benefits. Wandoan, a small place with 300 homes in the outback in Queensland, in eastern Australia, is an example of the gut wrenching change taking place in the mining areas. The lives of the people from the local pharmacy, the local supermarket, and the local ranchers, depend on the mining decisions made in China. This area was part of a planned, on again off again, $6 billion coal mine -part of a A$150 billion complex of natural gas and coal projects for exports to Asia in Queensland- and involved Xstrata buying 70,000 acres of the best grazing land for 7 coal mines. With the locals selling off, the mining uncertain, the supermarket closing, the whole town has the feeling of being up in the air, and fading out someday. Australian public sentiment recognizes this feeling, and at the same time is ambivalent about the impact. Polls conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, show 73% of Australians feel Chinese economic growth has a positive impact, and at the same time 57% feel that there is now excessive Chinese investment, and 46% feel China will be a military threat in 20 years. Australians remember the same feeling about Japan's investments in raw material sources in the eighties. In 1988, polls then showed 70% of Australians saying there was too much Japanese investment, even though they also recognized that Australia had benefitted. The difference now is that there are also fears of China's influence, and foreign investment guidelines limit investments in Australian mining companies to below 50%. China's investment in Australia's natural resources comes in several ways: in the year upto July 2009 A$42 billion in export demand, A$3 billion in direct investment in Australian companies, and about A$5 billion in project financing. Iron ore sales to China amount to A$22 billion each year, and about one fourth of Australia's exports went to China, growing at a rate of 31% in 2009. According to the chief economist of Austrade, the government trade organization, Australia benefits from the economic relationship with China- this adds A$3,400 per year to every Australian household. Efforts to use some of the profits made by mining corporations for infrastructure and other public purposes, by increasing the mining tax have failed; as the mining industry launched a campaign against the government of Kevin Rudd, who was removed from office by his party. In the recent national elections, the ruling Labor party lost its majority, after losses in the resource rich states of Western Australia and Queensland. In the meantime the Australian currency has become the currency used by currency speculators who cannot use the yuan to make a bet on the currency- as the yuan is pegged to the dollar- and instead use the Australian dollar as a proxy. This makes it volatile, with the Australian dollar losing 10% of its value in a single day, when pessimism increased about China's growth forecasts. It also shows how much of the good story of employment and gdp growth in Australia is tied to the story in China, and the extent of the negative impact a reversal in this area can mean for Australians; especially now that the bad debt in the post-2008 explosion of bank lending poses risks to China's banknig system. ...

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Experts in the U.S. say the U.S. made a mistake in not supporting the idea of a new financial institution to meet the urgent needs of development and infrastructure financing of Asia's developing countries. India, Australia, S. Korea, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are joining as founding members in 2015. China has offered leadership in providing resources for the new bank. Jane Perlez says China is looking for the best talent worldwide to help write the charter for the bank and to run it. It is a project pushed forward by China's president Jinping, and was discussed at the 2013 G-20 meeeting in Moscow as a critical part of the agenda. Laurence Brahm, who supported Chinese premier Zhu Rongji in 2001 for entry into the WTO, says it is natural for China to look for ways to use its extra capacity in steel, concrete and pipes to build projects in other parts of Asia, which would mutually benefit China and the region. Paul Haenle of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, says the U.S. lack of support is shortsighted, as the existing U.S. sponsored institutions World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are sorely lacking the resources to deal with the huge infrastructure challenges in Asia. China's Finance Ministry is looking for the best talent worldwide to write the charter and run the bank. Natalie Lichtenstein, a lawyer with 30 years experience working at the World Bank will write the bank's founding charter. ...