Before we proceed to a brief summary of electorally relevant current events in federal politics, please note the other quality content that it’s pushing down the order: a guest post from Adrian Beaumont on the threat of US debt default and other international events, a post on a Tasmanian poll with a summary of recent events in that state, and a detailed analysis of results from last year’s federal election in thirteen seats in inner Melbourne.
• The Fadden by-election has been set for July 25, with nominations to close on June 23. As was covered in the previous post, a Liberal National Party preselection that has attracted five nominees will be conducted today. Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports that Anthony Albanese would rather Labor forfeit the by-election for a seat the LNP holds on a 10.6% margin, but must reckon with a local branch “agitating to run a candidate”.
• The New South Wales Liberal Party will hold its preselection this weekend to fill the Senate vacancy resulting from the death of Jim Molan in January. The field have candidates has narrowed to three: former state Transport Minister Andrew Constance, former state party president Maria Kovacic and Space Industry Association chief executive James Brown. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the latter has a long list of high-profile backers including John Howard, Julie Bishop and Dave Sharma.
• The Byron Shire Echo reports comedian Mandy Nolan will again run as the Greens candidate for the Byron Bay and Tweed Heads region seat of Richmond at the next federal election. Nolan added 5.0% to the party’s primary vote share last May to outpoll the Nationals, although preferences from right-wing minor parties pushed the Nationals candidate ahead of her at the final exclusion.
Briefly is absolutely correct. We float on the global exchange and are better for it.
Nations that do not are less efficient, noncompetitive and do themselves great harm eventually.
The less protective areas of our economy we have the better off we are long term.
Our problems lie mainly in the fair distribution of our resources inside Australia.
Player One says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 10:09 am
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #293 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 9:59 am
Nearly all manufacturers eventually fail.
This comment would be laughable, except it is actually sad. It epitomizes what is wrong with Australia. We have become so addicted to relying on our luck that we pretend there are no benefits to be had from application and innovation – “it will eventually fail”.
The composition of the economy is not about luck. It is about the terms of trade, the exchange rate, the scale of markets, the resource base and the appetites for our products. No-one says that application and innovation are not important. They are, of course, utterly vital. The trouble is that by themselves they are not enough. They are necessary but not sufficient.
There isn’t a ‘masculinity crisis.’ Conservative men are just babies
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/26/2171586/-There-isn-t-a-masculinity-crisis-Conservative-men-are-just-babies
“The problem is that conservative men are big gigantic whining babies about everything, whimpering to themselves whenever any event happens in the world that does not revolve around them and their own personal desires.
The “crisis” is that liberal men have taken all the masculinity for themselves while conservative men work themselves up into crying, flag-waving tantrums whenever cartoon candy mascots show up with less sexy footwear than you had been hoping for. The Andrew Tates of the world are the least manly men there are, and the “crisis” is a modern conservative fetishization of so-called “masculinity” that considers any cultural reference other than low burping sounds to be an affront against their “way of life.”
Conservative men are the biggest snowflakes on the planet right now. They’re infantile in their presumptions of what “manhood” is supposed to be. Being a “man,” to the American right, means being able to shoot people who knock on your front door. It means lying about elections when elections don’t go your way. It means “protecting” your family by making sure any LGBTQ+ children in your child’s school are punished good and hard if they so much as remind anyone else of their existence”
Ven:
The right are the real snowflakes.
Asha @ #297 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 10:48 am
They’re melting…
Shifts in the terms of trade have been favourable to this country in the last couple of decades. This is a reversal of a very long trend….a trend that had been in place since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is good for us….for a territory with a low population, a capital intense and very open economy and a very diverse natural resource base. We have become export-specialised too. This means we can import freely without experiencing a decline in the exchange rate. As substantial importers, we are invoking the productive capacity of other domains for our benefit. We are able to appropriate the production of others. So that is a positive thing for our incomes.
It has meant we have been able to commit capital and labour in ways that optimise incomes and that match our capacities. We could do better. For sure. But we should not lament the decline of manufacturing. It’s possible that within a few decades manufacturing will comprise only a very small share of the world economy, just as agriculture now constitutes only a few % of the world economy. This is the obverse side of rising real incomes. Two things will drive this: demographics (declines in fertility and populations worldwide) and new technologies, especially AI.
”
Rusty Groupy Stoogesays:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 10:53 am
Shifts in the terms of trade have been favourable to this country in the last couple of decades. This is a reversal of a very long trend….a trend that had been in place since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is good for us….for a territory with a low population, a capital intense and very open economy and a very diverse natural resource base
”
I read somewhere that Australia was number 1 in the world per capita wise at the turn of 20th century (around 1900)
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #302 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 10:32 am
I am truly sorry your business had such poor luck. But that’s what happens when you rely on luck.
I note the reference to ‘Briefly’ a few posts back. Can anyone please tell me what moniker he is posting under these days.
Argentina and NZ ranked with Australia in 1900…Melbourne was likely the wealthiest city in the world in 1885.
Australia has a very bright future…. Exceptional. The terms of trade favour us. We need to get better at human capital creation and exchange. This is a great opportunity for us.
Bystander says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 11:11 am
I note the reference to ‘Briefly’ a few posts back. Can anyone please tell me what moniker he is posting under these days.
At your service…
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #310 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 11:14 am
The delusion is strong in this one! … 🙂
Player One says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 11:10 am
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #302 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 10:32 am
Player One says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 10:09 am
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #293 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 9:59 am
Nearly all manufacturers eventually fail.
This comment would be laughable, except it is actually sad. It epitomizes what is wrong with Australia. We have become so addicted to relying on our luck that we pretend there are no benefits to be had from application and innovation – “it will eventually fail”.
The composition of the economy is not about luck. It is about the terms of trade, the exchange rate, the scale of markets, the resource base and the appetites for our products. No-one says that application and innovation are not important. They are, of course, utterly vital. The trouble is that by themselves they are not enough. They are necessary but not sufficient.
I am truly sorry your business had such poor luck. But that’s what happens when you rely on luck.
I have no regrets. I did the best I could. The misfortunes I had were not related to “luck” in business or the economy, but to other events and forces….to serious crimes, to deaths and illnesses, to hatred, to greed, to contempt and to revenge.
I have had a very interesting life. Success and destruction, dispossession and destitution, alienation, emancipation, learning, discovery and beauty have been mine. I know happiness. I know silence and loneliness and I know kindness too. I am wiser now than I was. I am standing straight up now.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
UK Labour leads the Conservatives on every issue EXCEPT Ukraine.
Which party do voters trust the most on…? (Labour | the Conservatives)
NHS (40% | 20%)
Housing (37% | 20%)
Education (38% | 22%)
The Economy (35% | 27%)
Immigration (31% | 24%)
Ukraine (27% | 28%)
Player One says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 11:20 am
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #310 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 11:14 am
Australia has a very bright future…. Exceptional.
The delusion is strong in this one! …
This is not delusion. It is respect for others…for their good hearts and great minds, for their purpose and seriousness. I am not a pessimist. I believe in others, as much as I believe in myself.
Good to have you back mate. I had been wondering when you might reappear and in what guise. I always like to read your stuff. Hope everything is going well for you.
White supremacist cowards should get a life.
I wrote this yesterday…for your amusement:
The Rank of Marri, and Hay
Ohhh, it is true. It is an actual fact. It’s not possible to dispute this. The mighty marri of adult girth are dressed in blackened coats and stand at the perimeter of the wasteland, the grassed wasteland, where grasses are flattened out, where they’re bent down at the ankles, where they lie in strewn lumps on the slopes of dry mud.
Under the sun at noon in late May, the grasses lie down, waiting for rain. And the great trees stand up as an open rank with their arms stretched up to the bronzed sky, to the blue sky and to the lilac sky.
The up-stretched arms of the great trees are violet and lavender and olive and red and orange and grey. And yellow. Their great forms are biceps and triceps and necks and pectorals and ribs, and they have sockets and brows and mouths and cheeks and jaws.
They hold themselves up beneath the sun and in the wind and hold their mouths open waiting for the rains to come, the waters to fill their tanks and soak the clay that sticks to their toes.
The great true trees, ageless and with blackened coats and red eyes that have no tears to fall.
Black tea is not black. It is red or umber, possibly. But it is not black. It is light in the mouth, both sweet and not sweet. I like it best when it has cooled down and brewed for a while, and become foggy. The feel is round and comfortable, full, in the way that a breeze through the cypress at dusk can seem perfect.
My eyes. My eyes are sore from looking and looking and then further looking, though, of course, I know not what they are looking for. My eyes are not my own, it seems. They are at the service of another persona, an interior persona.
They are not my eyes. They are not in my sockets nor are they lodged behind my spectacles. They are the portals of another sensibility, a humanoid in a wide open space, a space without boundaries; a space wherein the grasses are knelt over, bent over with curled toes, the nails filled with dirt, and with their thighs collapsed, in humility. Their knees touch the dry mud
This is near Eveline, above the gutter that leads to the creek. The grasses lie folded and rolled and lumped. They are hay near the ruins of the old hospital, the broken wreck of a building, so chopped and shattered and disgraced.
Reconnaissance: 26 May 2023, near the Swan.
Bystander says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 11:30 am
I’m much obliged, Bystander. Thank you. I’m well these days, very well and happy. I’ve been drawing, painting, sculpting and writing too. I have projects and companions. There is beauty, which, with green vegetables and fish, is my staple. I have outlasted the wars and know peace at last.
More of this please…
Australia is something like the 86th most diversified economy in the world next to Burundi and Ethiopia.
If people think that is a recipe for ongoing prosperity I disagree. And manufacturing plays a role in diversifying the economy.
Another superb read from The Guardian…
Torchbearer says:
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 11:52 am
Australia is something like the 86th most diversified economy in the world next to Burundi and Ethiopia.
Well done to Burundi and Ethiopia. They are becoming developing economies. Good. Their incomes will rise. I hope they achieve the level of self-sustaining development of Switzerland or the New England/Atlantic economy in North America.
Top Democrats and Republicans sent strong signals Friday night that they’re nearing an elusive agreement on a debt-ceiling increase to prevent an economy-rattling government default.
While negotiators said it was too soon to announce a deal, both sides voiced confidence that they were within striking distance of a compromise to lift the government’s borrowing cap while taking steps to rein in deficit spending — legislation that took on greater urgency Friday afternoon when the Treasury Department announced that the government will run short of cash on Jan. 5.
Leaving for Camp David on Friday, Biden told reporters that negotiators are getting “very close” to a deal. “I’m hopeful we’ll know by tonight whether we are going to be able to have a deal,” Biden said.
At least one GOP negotiator on Friday evening agreed with that assessment. “I would concur,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told reporters.
RP @ #269 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 8:55 am
I’m not questioning his qualifications, nor am I suggesting I’m more qualified than him. What I did was look at the evidence he, himself, presented and took the ‘glass half full’ perspective as well as inserted an observation of my own based upon the advice from an expert at the UN IPCC this week who said that, looking forward with the data they have before them it seems as though we may be able to keep that increase in global temperature down between 1.5c and 2C. Very much a case, it seems, of bending the curve back down to manageable levels which will allow the climate to heal. It won’t happen overnight, but the UN appears now to think it will happen.
Yes, we will still see the effects of the energy in the system already, but it’s what lies ahead of us that is more important to focus on, because if you think it’s going to all end in tears, then you’re almost as bad as those who don’t want to do anything about it, as you run around like Henny Penny. No matter how many fires you’ve fought, or how many degrees in Environmental Science and Resource Management you have. Because it’s people like you that frighten voters back to the Coalition, who only ever want to do the bare minimum about the problem.
The best advice I could give to you is to work hard to keep electing federal Labor governments while they get on with the job of Decarbonising the economy and achieving the energy transformation we know we need to achieve what we all want in order to get ‘climate forcing’ under control. And it’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen with a federal Labor government.
Steve777 @ #290 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 9:30 am
This gets to the heart of the Coalition’s approach to government and how THEY don’t care how much they spend, as long as it’s on their mates and donors:
In the rural and regional affairs committee, Agriculture Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe confirmed that an Australian National Audit Office report found earlier this year that PwC staff had attempted to use information gained through one of 11 contracts with his department to leverage a new contract.
Metcalfe said he had been forced to hire consultants to meet the pandemic-related workload when the previous government had instructed him “to not employ more public servants”.
To manage the contractors, his department hired PwC as a “strategic partner” on its own $22.8 million contract, with another $17.4 million to act as a “delivery partner”.
Metcalfe explained PwC executives had attended some executive leadership meetings. An “unsolicited approach” was made and was dealt with in a “highly ethical” manner.
“We indicated that we were unhappy with that approach,” he said, adding it was “only ever a conversation” and no formal proposal was made. “But we actually took the opportunity to remind PwC of their obligations.”
On Thursday, Industrial Relations minister Tony Burke described the previous government’s arrangements as effectively “an entirely shadow public service that had been fully privatised”. He told the ABC the government was endeavouring to “bring that back in-house because the public service should be owned by the Australian people”.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2023/05/27/police-doubted-pwc-scandal
Then, when they have done that, they turn around and say there’s no money left in the kitty and so they have to slash services.
I also remind people reading this of the Coalition’s one solid promise at the 2022 federal election. To axe 18000 Public Servants.
When they tell you who they are, believe them. 😐
Rusty Groupy Stooge @ #323 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 11:56 am
It is not so much that other countries are roaring up the ladder, it is that Australia is in free fall. Because too many find it easier to concentrate on mining (which adds nothing to our economic complexity, our economic resilience, or our long term prosperity) than manufacturing (which does all three).
C@tmomma @ #325 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 12:45 pm
What a load of tosh. You clearly didn’t understand the data presented in the paper at all. Because it does not support your conclusion in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact. That was the point of it. And I’m afraid your so-called “expert” is – to be diplomatic about it – being wildly optimistic, apparently on the basis of nothing more than wishful thinking.
The Emperor Trajan — Roman History by Cassius Dio 200 AD
(Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared optimus princeps by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history and led the empire to attain its greatest territorial extent by the time of his death.)
Excerpt from — Roman History by Cassius Dio 200 AD
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/68*.html
I was reading this last night, and found this bit fascinating and somewhat bizarre.
“He was so high-minded and generous that, after enlarging and embellishing the Circus, which had crumbled away in places, he merely inscribed on it a statement that he had made it adequate for the Roman people. 3 For these deeds, now, he took more pleasure in being loved than in being honoured. His association with the people was marked by affability and his intercourse with the senate by dignity, so that he was loved by all and dreaded by none save the enemy. He joined others in the chase and in banquets, as well as in their labours and plans and jests. Often he would take three others into his carriage, and he would enter the houses of citizens, sometimes even without a guard, and enjoy himself there. 4 Education in the strict sense he lacked, when it came to speaking, but its substance he both knew and applied; and there was no quality which he did not possess in a high degree.
p373 I know, of course, that he was devoted to boys and to wine, but if he had ever committed or endured any base or wicked deed as the result of this, he would have incurred censure; as it was, however, he drank all the wine he wanted, yet remained sober, and in his relation with boys he harmed no one.”
Hmmm. Mindset is a fascinating thing.
Cat read the report. It’s science and yes it’s f’n scary. You do understand that IPCC reports are always out of date and the working group 2 and 3 reports are politically moderated. I’ve been reading them since the first one came out and we have now had 27 COP’S and guess what emissions are still growing at an accelerating rate.
Now I’m one of those people who are in the minority that believe that continual growth in a fixed system is an impossibility.
Did my time in the Labor party and it’s always going to get my vote before the conservatives but I live in Mayo so it ends up Sharkie. I have zero belief that politics is capable of dealing with this because people are never going to vote for a reduction in material living standards.
RP,
Get out of your bubble! Of course disaster is on the horizon, always will be until we get things under control, but there’s only one way to get there from here.
Do what I do, read widely. For example, this article just gave me an insight into what another area of high emissions is doing to deal with the problem:
Today prefabricated homes predominantly use cross-laminated timber and structurally insulated panels. These relatively new materials mean more companies can build more sustainably (the construction industry is responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions)– and quickly.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/21/could-prefab-homes-be-future-australian-house-houses
Hope not hopelessness. Action not reaction.
Economic diversification
Yes you will find us there on the left hand side of the graph with one of the highest GDP per head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_complexity
C@tmomma @ #332 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 1:52 pm
Evidence not wishful thinking.
You’ll never guessed who modelled Tanya’s Green Wall St.
https://twitter.com/NickFeik/status/1660899152413466624
Rex Douglas @ #335 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 2:15 pm
It’s truly embarrassing, isn’t it?
Cat my bubble ranges from billionaire heiresses to blokes that have done time in H division Pentrigde how much bigger do you think I can get it?
Here is the GDP per capita ranking.
Do note the high ranking nations do not build cars and trucks. You get down to number 7 before you find a car manufacturing industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
list by economic complexity against GDP per person
Complexity GDP pr head
1 Japan 28
2 Switzerland 4
3 Chinese Taipei 30
4 South Korea 33
5 Germany 19
6 Singapore 5
7 Czechia 35
8 Sweden 14
9 Austria 9
10 United States 7
Economic complexity Doesn’t mean much does it?
Poster: A strong leader is not a bunker coward.” In Belgorod, Russia. The campaign has already begun. The Wagner Group PMC CEO, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is actively demonstrating his presidential ambitions.
NSW: Former Liberal Party state president Maria Kovacic will enter the Senate after winning a preselection for the party’s vacancy on Saturday. Kovacic edged out former state treasurer and transport minister Andrew Constance in the vote, winning 287-243.
Vision of the medical clinic struck by a Russian missile yesterday:
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17540
frednk @ #338 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 2:30 pm
Not to those who don’t understand its benefits, no. Nor to those who don’t care that that their current level of prosperity is largely due to luck and is neither equitable nor sustainable. But to those that value longer term resilience, prosperity, opportunity and equity it does.
The World Health Organisation has drawn attention to Russia’s missile and artillery strikes against Ukrainian medical facilities:
“According to the World Health Organization, out of 974 recorded attacks, 873 impacted medical facilities…
“WHO condemns all acts of violence against healthcare. These attacks not only kill and maim but also deprive people of urgently needed care, endanger healthcare providers, and undermine health systems,” WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told CNN.
“Attacks on health care workers, patients, transport, supplies, and health facilities are a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law and must stop now,” she said. “We call for an immediate cessation of all activities that endanger the lives of health care workers and patients or impede delivery of essential health services.”
https://kyivindependent.com/who-has-confirmed-974-attacks-against-health-care-in-ukraine-since-russias-full-scale-invasion/
873 attacks over 438 days [to May 7, which is the WHO’s most recent data] means on average almost exactly 2 medical facilities in Ukraine attacked by Russians every single day over the past 15 months.
RP @ #337 Saturday, May 27th, 2023 – 2:25 pm
I can say the same thing. That has nothing to do with the point I’m trying to make to you. What I’m trying to say is that we don’t get much more of a choice in a democracy between one party or another. So, at the end of the day, you either vote for the party that wants to do something, or the party that doesn’t. Or The Greens, and we thank you for your preferences.
Honestly, I was a scientist long before you fought your first fire and way before there even was a degree in Environmental Science. My mother-in-law was one of the first in Australia to read ‘The Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson and to associate in the 1950s and 1960s with the progenitors of the environment movement, she was hardcore. So don’t try and cast me as someone who is trying not to take the issue seriously, it insults both my intelligence and my concern about Global Heating. However, I’m old enough and wise enough to have figured out what will likely work to actually get something done and to save the planet. That seems to be the only difference between you and me.
HHB: “Constance”
Poor Andrew. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
China has finally been unmasked as being firmly in war criminal Putin’s corner in his brutal and unjustifiable attempt at conquest and genocide of Ukraine – as if that were ever really in doubt:
“Special representative of the Chinese government, Li Hui, allegedly tried to convince the European vis-a-vis that they should call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, recognising the occupied Ukrainian territories as those belonging to Russia.
Source: The Wall Street Journal with reference to Western officials familiar with the progress of Li Hui’s negotiations in European capitals
Quote from the WSJ: “The Chinese ambassador dispatched to push Beijing’s peace plan for Ukraine carried a clear message: US allies in Europe should assert their autonomy and urge an immediate cease-fire, leaving Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbour it now occupies, according to Western officials familiar talks in capitals across the continent.”
Details: China’s Foreign Ministry has not yet responded to a request for comment.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/26/7404024/
Behind the smiling facade of ‘neutrality’, Xi has sent his hand-picked envoy to four major European capitals to urge them all to abandon Ukraine to Russia’s conquest and continuing genocide. Fuck Xi and fuck his whole regime. Whatever we can do to screw China over in any field of human endeavour we can think of, we should do.
Interesting comment on Judicial appointments, or throwing stones in glass houses:
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/may/26/judge-apologises-after-claiming-that-colleagues-are-appointed-regardless-of-merit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR0T4uglJiQNLyCV-uLhIrDgtysGaJKY0j2QQ-EaT3Hoik89GKQBwpgvT0M_aem_th_AZ4RwHHsPJXVQ3RVpGQLFRxalXoaHz-Uh0_yzs4I-EVwxGgz3VeEbuFhi8DrW1vofKE&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
For the record – I don’t think it is as bad as the good judge claims. Some obviously political appointments make great judges – despite the circumstances. Others leave their wives for women 44 years their junior.
The Western diplomatic audience for Chinese Envoy Li’s forked tongue whisperings in European capitals had their own message for Li:
“The officials said they didn’t think peace would be possible until Russian troops left Ukraine.
“We explained that freezing the conflict is not in the interest of the international community unless there is withdrawal of Russian troops,” a diplomat who spoke to Li said.
According to the diplomat, Li was told that “it is impossible to split Europe from America” and that Europe would not stop supporting Ukraine.
“They are probably testing the unity of the West and trying to show initiative,” another diplomat said.
According to another WSJ interlocutor, China’s main interests appeared to be to ensure that Russia doesn’t lose the war and that Moscow refrains from using nuclear weapons…
… European diplomats said that during their meetings with Li, they tried to convey three key messages: China should continue to put pressure on Russia not to use nuclear weapons, not to provide military aid to Russia and to condemn Moscow’s aggression. They also asked Li to support international efforts to secure the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia had seized.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/26/7404024/
Europe wants defence of international law and protection of civilian lives and livelihoods; China wants nukes that won’t be fired anyway not be fired, and for genocidal war criminal Putin to remain in power. Gee, who should we support here??
In its strict mathematical definition, the ECI is defined in terms of an eigenvalue of a matrix connecting countries to countries, which is a projection of the matrix connecting countries to the products they export.
So..….economic complexity is a dummy term. It is a way of describing the intensity of manufactures in an economy’s exports. It is absolutely no surprise that Japan and Switzerland are top of the list. They have no raw materials for export. They cannot produce bulk commodities because they have none. If the index ranked complexity by their dependence on commodity imports, they would also be at the top of the list.
This index is worthless. Should the Pilbara be considered to be an economic Dead Sea? It certainly would qualify in this index. But that would tell you nothing about the Pilbara that is worth knowing.
In contrast now to Xi stands Brazilian President Lula:
“Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he refused to come to Russia at the invitation of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/26/7404078/
It is too soon to tell whether cracks may be forming within BRICS. However, if they do form, I think it is most likely to be through India and Brazil. Albo is already doing his bit with Modi – time for some Western TLC for Lula?