Percy Allan (Dec'd)
Recent articles by Percy Allan (Dec'd)
1 October 2024
Market hits record high
The All-Ords was in a sideways trading range between early February and early August and then dived. Since then, it has not only rebounded but escaped its former range ceiling and is now trading at a record high.
15 September 2024
Are America’s right and left converging on foreign policy?
The interview of Jeffrey Sachs, a Social Progressive, by Tucker Carlson, a Social Conservative, makes riveting viewing since its an insight to where the polar enemies of American politics may be converging on their big picture view of US foreign policy.
3 September 2024
In August the market dived, but then revived on rate hopes – Monthly economic and market review
The All-Ords share price index plunged 5.8% in the first two trading days of August and then rebounded 5.8% by 30 August. It ended the month just 0.3% short of where it started.
27 August 2024
How China moved from a command to a free market economy and is now restoring socialism
This short history of China over the last three decades is mainly based on the first of a three part series in the SCMP. It describes how the adoption of neo-liberalism by President Deng made China rich but also created social problems that President Xi is trying to fix.
7 August 2024
Mood now upbeat in Australia, but downbeat in America - Monthly economic and market review
Two news items last week completely reversed the economic outlooks in Australia and America.
3 August 2024
America’s war machine: Unless Australia acquires nuclear weapons, why acquire AUKUS subs?
Nuclear-powered Virginia Class and AUKUS submarines are a useful deterrent only if they carry cruise missiles with nuclear warheads that can be launched from their unique vertical firing shaft.
20 July 2024
What happens now that Israel has formally rejected a two-state solution?
Given the Israeli Parliament’s overwhelming rejection of a two-state solution the world needs to recognise that it is no longer possible, at least in the short and possibly medium term. It’s a mirage that opinion polls show most Israelis and Palestinians don’t want. Given their long acrimony, the sad truth is that each side wants to overpower the other and have only one nation.
4 July 2024
Will a stranded Philippines' ship trigger war with China?
China claims sovereignty over roughly 62% of the South China Sea (SCS) as delineated by a nine-dash line first published on a Chinese map in 1947.
3 July 2024
Market drift and rate rise threat - Monthly economic and market review
The Australian All-Ords index rose 8.3% during the financial year ending last Sunday. But Australia’s economy has had a dismal time with real GDP per capita contracting in each of the five quarters to March 2024. With annual CPI inflation rebounding after earlier falls, the market now expects the RBA to further dampen consumer spending by increasing its cash rate from 4.35% to 4.6% in either August or September.
22 June 2024
Why inflation should soon resume falling
Let’s not goad the Reserve Bank to fight higher underlying inflation that can be corrected by disciplined fiscal policy and a more open and competitive economy.
19 June 2024
Stabilisation, but deeper relationship stymied by Australian mass media sinophobes
Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit underscores the significance of the Australia-China relationship, especially given China’s status as Australia’s largest trading partner. A deeper relation should develop, but that will take time. Trust needs to be reestablished not only at diplomatic and business levels, but also in the Australian mass media, whose China opinion writers have almost all become Sinophobes arguing that China is trying to subvert and attack its neighbours - including Australia, writes Percy Allan in an interview with China’s Global Times.
5 June 2024
War fears and rate worries: monthly economic and market review
Since my last report, the All-Ords share price index rose by 3.2% from Friday 3rd May to Thursday 16th May, but then fell by 2.2% to Friday 31st May. But for a 0.9% uptick last Friday there would have been no gain in the last four weeks.
13 May 2024
Who will win the US Presidential Election? Professor Lichtman may hold the key
The Guardian newspaper reports that history professor Allan Lichtman is known as the Nostradamus of US presidential elections since he has correctly predicted the results of nine of the past ten ballots.
2 May 2024
Monthly economic and market review
The Australian All-Ords share price index rose 0.3% last week after falling 2.9% the week before. The index had been yo-yoing sideways since it escaped its three-year channel ceiling at the end of February 2024, but a fortnight ago had a big drop bringing it back within its previous channel ceiling. Read Percy Allan's monthly economic market review.
2 April 2024
Booming shares, but slowing economy - April market and economic review
Callum Thomas, editor of Top-Down charts sums it up well - Sentiment is increasingly consensus bullish. Bears have all but gone extinct. Large and small investors alike are basically all-in. Tech stock valuations have surpassed the 2021 peak. Downside volatility has collapsed. Overall, the evidence is all consistent with what you typically see during a bull market.
27 March 2024
Is China an Imperialist nation?
I was recently sent a complete list of Chinas invasions of other countries in the last 2,245 years to demonstrated that China is historically an imperial nation and hence dangerous.
25 March 2024
America's latest move to block China's economic rise
US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would bar US mutual funds from investing in indexes that track Chinese stocks (Bloomberg). According to Bloomberg The legislation targets mutual funds that invest in indexes tracking primarily Chinese stocks, rather than those investing in indexes that only include some Chinese companies, according to Shermans office. However, the lawmakers left it to the Securities and Exchange Commission to write rules thatd ultimately determine which products are impacted.
19 March 2024
Global economic and financial review
The American economy is strong, Australias economy has slowed to a standstill, and Xi Jinping is proving to be a dry economic rationalist rather than a warm indulgent socialist. Read on for this week's global economic and financial review.
5 March 2024
Boom or bubble: March market and economic review
Last Friday the All-Ords share index finally escaped its straitjacket of see-sawing sideways within a range of roundly 6,600 to 7,900 since April 2021. The All-Ords reached 8007.1 points, beating its previous high on the 4 January 2022 (7926.8). See chart below. Technical analysts view this breakout to be a particularly good omen.
26 February 2024
Is China repeating Australias mistake on Indigenous Affairs?
The South China Morning Post recently published an illuminating article on Chinas policy towards ethnic minorities, with a particular focus on Inner Mongolia that has strived hardest to assimilate its Mongols with the rest of the Chinese population to promote a single national identity. But does China's policy reflect the assimilation policies towards First Nations that Australia adopted in the 1930s and has now come to regret?
23 February 2024
Tribute to a great public sector reformer, Don Nicholls AM
My late friend and mentor Don Nicholls was one of the great public servants of NSW where he was Chief Economist and then Deputy Secretary, NSW Treasury.
8 February 2024
Chinas worrying economic policy drift
The Rhodium Group, an independent research organisation with a focus on China, says the nations economic policymaking process has stalled with it refusing to announce meaningful actions to overcome its pressing property and share market crashes let alone forge a clear path for the future. The full paper can be accessed here.
7 February 2024
Why Yang Hengjun should be released - he's Walter Mitty not James Bond!
The standard media news bite is that Yang Hengjun is a Chinese born Australian pro-democracy writer who was unlawfully detained and now jailed for life in China. But the full story is murkier than that.
6 February 2024
Record highs: February market and economic review
Not only has the stock market shaken off its new year hangover but the All-Ords is now higher than after its Santa Rally in December 2023. Indeed, it has reached a record high.
18 January 2024
Can China escape a deflationary trap? Economic outlook 2024
Last year was the most widely anticipated recession in history because tight monetary policy, slower government spending and higher oil prices normally spell doom. Yet total economic output (GDP) in both America and Australia kept growing in real (after inflation) terms. So, what can we expect in 2024? Will economists get it right this year or miss the mark again? Here is the outlook for leading economies based on what most forecasters are saying.
8 January 2024
Rates cut outlook
The recent sharp falls in US, UK, European and Australian inflation rates have convinced analysts that central bank rate rises are over and the next move will be rate cuts in 2024. The US Federal Reserve chairman in the first half of December signalled that too.
2 January 2024
China is not a threat: debunking the US narrative
In this series, I explore how US narratives on the China threat have become entrenched in Western security communities and how a China threat narrative has been constructed by Republicans and Democrats in the United States in an attempt to create a rally round the flag effect designed to internally unite a deeply divided America.
31 December 2023
How to stop a Gaza apocalypse
Why Gaza urgently needs a plan B. (A repost from December 2023).
21 December 2023
Economic outlook will 2024 be a hard, soft or no landing?
On the Australian economy, bulls and bears cannot both be right. 2024 will decide the fate of both economies and markets, a hard, soft or no landing.
6 December 2023
Should Jim Chalmers adopt MMT to offer Swedish services with Swiss taxes?
Alan Kohler has written a thought-provoking piece suggesting Japan's embrace of modern monetary theory (MMT) since 2001 might be the model for Treasurer Jim Chalmers meeting future social needs without raising taxes. MTT involves a central bank funding its governments annual deficits and build-up of debt by printing digital money.
5 December 2023
The realpolitik of the Gaza war
If this 2022-23 opinion poll is correct then a clear majority of Palestinians want a single-Islamic state, not a shared Islamic-Jewish one let alone a two-state solution.
2 October 2023
China is not a threat: debunking the US narrative
In this series, I explore how US narratives on the China threat have become entrenched in Western security communities and how a China threat narrative has been constructed by Republicans and Democrats in the United States in an attempt to create a rally round the flag effect designed to internally unite a deeply divided America.
30 September 2023
Chinas Military is built for defence, not to threaten others
In the final of this three-part series, I explore why Chinas emphasis on expanding land and naval forces suggests its focus is on defence of its borders and seaborne trade, not offence.
29 September 2023
Why China is not planning to conquer other nations
Besides settling and securing its borders, China has no claims on other nations. Countries with grandiose territorial ambitions make no secret of them. This second article in a three-part series explores why China is not planning to conquer and occupy any other nation.
28 September 2023
Why China is not a threat: Sinophobia Unites Americans
Hatred of China is now the single issue that unites Democrats and Republicans. Having a perceived foe helps unite a deeply divided America internally, unless, of course, it becomes a losing cause. This three-part series explores how US narratives on the China threat have become entrenched in the West, and why China is not a threat - unless we make it one.
7 June 2023
Chinese tourists turn their backs on Oz
The evidence is now in Chinese tourists are largely boycotting Australia.
22 April 2023
Gaping contradiction in Australian Foreign Policy
Dear friends, an excellent piece has been published by Professor Hugh White in the Lowy Interpreter that highlights a contradiction in our federal governments foreign policy.
22 March 2023
The shipping lie
Defence Minister Richard Marles has now told us why we need nuclear submarines not to defend Taiwan or attack China, but to defend our merchant shipping. Sounds credible until one does the maths.
17 March 2023
The fiscal fallout of AUKUS
What are the budgetary implications of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal?
19 November 2022
How to fix the broken system of public policy making
Last week the NSW Legislative Council introduced a standing order requiring that all government bills include a Statement of Public Interest (SPI). This is the first time in Australia that a public policy framework for interrogating bills has been given legal force. Its a big breakthrough that other governments and parliaments should emulate.
14 November 2022
Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping? Who started the trade war?
Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese is perpetuating the myth that Chinas action in 2020 to restrict Australian exports was a bolt out of the blue that was uncalled for. President Xi will have a very different view.
1 August 2022
Could a second Trump Presidency leave Australia stranded?
Peter Hartchers recent piece on the ramifications of another Trump presidencyundermines his usual argument that Australia must join America in confronting China and prepare for war with it.
8 July 2022
Anthony Albanese on China - What next? The Taiwan conflict
The large Chinese diaspora that helped Labor win office in the hope of better relations with China could switch its support to less hawkish Teal candidates likely to contest Labor seats at the next election.
7 July 2022
Anthony Albanese on China - What next on the human rights dilemma?
China is reported as undemocratic, persecuting Tibetan and Uighur minorities, incarcerating Hong Kong separatists, and having border skirmishes. But many other countries fit that label too, yet we court them rather than shun them. A notable example is Myanmar, where Australia refuses to join other Western nations in imposing sanctions on the military junta for its genocide against Muslim Rohingyas. Until last year, Australia gave military assistance to the regime.
6 July 2022
Anthony Albanese on China What Next? Who started the trade war?
Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese is perpetuating the myth that Chinas action in 2020 to restrict Australian exports was a bolt out of the blue that was uncalled for.
26 May 2022
Big breakthrough in NSW governance
Last week the NSW Legislative Council took a big step to require more evidence and consultation-based government bills. It unanimously agreed that for every government bill (other than a budget bill), the Selection of Bills committee must report whether the bill is accompanied by a Statement of Public Interest that addresses the following questions:
11 May 2022
Winning hearts and minds in the Pacific Islands
Suddenly the Pacific Islands have become a hot election issue. That is because the Solomon Islands agreed to China using its own security guards to safeguard Chinese businesses and projects from attack and looting in the wake of recognising China instead of Taiwan.
19 April 2022
The brutality of Russias army in Ukraine is horrifying and unacceptable
Instead of making Russia important and respected Putin has taken on the mantle of Hitler and his ruthless troops are now equated with the Wehrmacht. How long can the West witness the murder of civilians and the destruction of their homes before demanding Russia stop its atrocities or face direct NATO intervention?