It's all about copper

Courtesy of www.macrotrends.net

 

Starting mid-February, China started to hoard copper like there's no tomorrow. China typically uses its stock of copper this time of year but instead it is building stock, all whilst the price of copper surges. So what’s going on?

Copper is the backbone of the clean energy transition. Millions of feet of copper wiring are needed to build the more complex grids that can handle electricity produced by renewable sources and balance out their intermittent supplies.

So it makes sense that China would want to tighten its grip on supplies. China’s strategic stockpiles help it to influence prices on global markets and protect against shortages for its domestic industry.

But with similar stockpiling taking place in other commodities such as oil and iron ore, could China be preparing for a structural devaluation of its currency, stocking up on important commodities in advance? It would certainly spell good news for commodities across the board.

Although copper has rallied in recent months, there is a lot more left in the trade. Quite simply, there isn’t enough new investments in copper mines, which take many years – even decades – to build, which would explain BHP Group’s recent $39 billion takeover bit of Anglo American.

According to estimates, miners will need to spend more than $150 billion between 2025 and 2032 in order to fulfil the industry’s supply needs – so all roads point to an impending supply crunch. Indeed, Goldman Sachs expects demand to outstrip supply this year.

Happy days for BHP which is the world's second-largest copper producer.

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The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time

 

 

Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known the "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day - and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.

The quest for a solution had occupied scientists and their patrons for the better part of two centuries when, in 1714, Parliament upped the ante by offering a king's ransom (£20,000) to anyone whose method or device proved successful. Countless quacks weighed in with preposterous suggestions. The scientific establishment throughout Europe - from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton - had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution - a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land.

"Longitude" is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest, and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking.

 

Longitude is the measurement east or west of the prime meridian that runs through Greenwich, England. Half of the world, the Eastern Hemisphere, is measured in degrees east of the prime meridian. The other half, the Western Hemisphere, in degrees west of the prime meridian. Degrees of longitude are divided into 60 minutes. Each minute of longitude can be further divided into 60 seconds. For example, the longitude of Paris, France, is 2° 29' E (2 degrees, 29 minutes east). The longitude for Brasilia, Brazil, is 47° 55' W (47 degrees, 55 minutes west). A degree of longitude is about 111 kilometers (69 miles) at its widest. The widest areas of longitude are near the Equator, where Earth bulges out. Because of Earth's curvature, the actual distance of a degrees, minutes, and seconds of longitude depends on its distance from the Equator. The greater the distance, the shorter the length between meridians. All meridians meet at the North and South Poles.

 

I picked up this beautifully turned-out hardcover edition of Dava Sobel's book at my favourite op-shop for a mere gold coin. I already have one copy, and this one is not for myself but for one of the lifeguards at the Aquatic Centre who with her partner will go a-sailing again in May on their yacht presently moored at Yorkey's Knob just north of Cairns.

Of course, they have a Global Positioning Sydney (GPS) on board which gives them their position on the ocean within metres at the press of a button. For all I know, they may not even know the meaning of latitude and longitude but they will after they've read "Longitude".

 

 

And so will you after you've read this book online at www.archive.org.

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Castaway - no, not the one with Tom Hanks!

 

"Castaway" is a 1983 autobiographical book by Lucy Irvine about her year on the Australian tropical Torres Strait island of Tuin, having answered a want ad from writer Gerald Kingsland seeking a "wife" for a year in 1982. Her book was the basis of the 1986 film "Castaway", starring Oliver Reed as Gerald Kingsland and Amanda Donohoe as Irvine.

 

An infinity of sea and sky bluer and more brilliant than in any dream. Our wake made a white streak across the blue so struck with glittering points of light it smarted the eye. We passed islands to our left and to our right; bottle green bosomy mounds frilled about with white sand rising out of that electric world of blue."

Lucy Irvine and her "husband" Gerald Kingsland spent a year in 1982 on the tiny uninhabited island of Tuin in the Torres Strait, some five years after I had lived and worked on nearby Thursday Island.

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org
And here is the audiobook read by Lucy Irvine herself

 

Lucy Irvine was born on 1 February 1956 in Whitton, Middlesex. She ran away from school and had no full-time education after the age of thirteen. She was employed as a charlady, monkey-keeper, waitress, stonemason's mate, life model, pastry-cook, and concierge, and also worked with disabled people and as a clerk at the Inland Revenue.

She has written "One is One"; an account of her early years, aptly named "Runaway"; "Castaway"; and - which is where our paths crosssed again - "Faraway" about her year spent on remote Pigeon Island in the then British Solomon Islands where I almost took a job myself in late 1969.

 

Location maps of Tuin Island

 

Forget Tom Hanks! Read about real castaways, and watch the movie!

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If only those walls could talk ...

456 Brunswick Road, West Brunswick. According to realestate.com.au, it has 4 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and is on 527 square metres of land, and sold in 1984 for $67,500. Rented out since 2003; last rented in 2021 at $515 a week.

 

As I wrote about my arrival in Australia in 1965 here, "We disembarked in some sort of organised chaos at Port Melbourne and soon afterwards boarded a train for the inland town of Albury from where we were taken to the Migrant Centre at Bonegilla ... Deep blue skies and brilliant sunshine during the day made up for the freezing nights. It was two days after I had arrived in camp and while I was "thawing" out in the midday sun when another German who had come off the ship with me, told me about a "German Lady", a Mrs Haermeyer, at the camp's reception centre who was offering to take three or four recently arrived German migrants back to Melbourne to board at her house. I had been "processed" by the camp's administration on the first day and knew that in all likelihood I was destined to be sent to Sydney to work as labourer for the Sydney Water Board. So what did I have to lose? In record time I had myself signed out by the 'Camp Commandant', my few things packed, and was sitting, with three other former ship-mates, in a VW Beetle enroute back to Melbourne ... The 'German Lady' had turned out to be a very enterprising roly-poly German housewife who with her German husband, a bricklayer, operated something of a boarding-house from their quaint little place at 456 Brunswick Road in West Brunswick in Melbourne. The place seemed already full to overflowing with young Germans from a previous intake, with bodies occupying the lounge-room sofa, a make-shift annex, and an egg-shaped plywood caravan in the backyard."

Quite some time later, a Jürgen Hanke sent me this email, "Hallo Peter, per Zufall bin ich auf Deine Geschichte im Internet gekommen. Ich war auch auf der FLAVIA - 18 Jahre, voller Hoffnung und Erwartung. Es hat sich gelohnt. Ich war nur 7 Jahre in Australien, habe aber die beste Zeit meines Lebens erlebt. Es hat mein Leben geprägt - nun stehe ich kurz vor der Rente und denke an die Anfänge. Im Juli werde ich 65, die Kinder sind gross und ich bin noch fit und ... Ich könnte Stunden schreiben, aber das wäre nicht schön - ich möchte es geniessen. Also, ich bin von Bonnegilla nach Melbourne gekommen über die gleiche nette deutsche Dame, und habe in der Staatsdruckerei in Melbourne sofort einen Job bekommen. Habe für die letzten 30DM einen Arbeitskittel gekauft und war pleite. Habe schnell englisch gelernt durch den Beruf als Schriftsetzer. Habe mich einem Soccerverein angeschlossen (Allemania Richmond) und jeden Winter in Melbourne Fußball gespielt. Die restliche Zeit habe ich mich mit vielen Jobs durch ganz Australien durchgeschlagen: Snowy Mountains Scheme, Fitzroy Crossing, Kimberleys, Perth, Kalgoorlie and Tasmania and so on. If you want to know more about my life, contact me - I sure want to talk about yours. I told a friend from England last Saturday that I had my first skiing lesson at Mt. Buller 1965. Best wishes from Germany "

(If you don't speak German - Ve Haf Vays To Make You Talk - click here)

 

 

As he wrote, he had also travelled to Australia on the good ship FLAVIA, the same ship on which I had arrived just five months later ...

 

Bonegilla Migrant Camp registration card

 

... and he had also been picked up from Bonegilla a week after arrival by the same "German lady" and taken to Melbourne where he would still have lived in the same house at 456 Brunswick Road, West Brunswick, when I arrived there five months later. What an amazing coincidence!

 

The house had been full with young Germans in every room, even sleeping on the lounge-room sofa, in a make-shift annex and an egg-shaped plywood caravan in the backyard.
... and here is a current street view of 456 Brunswick Road

 

The house is still there, unchanged, but no longer full to overflowing with young German migrants. Just how many young German migrants had taken their first uncertain steps from this house to start a new life in a new country will never be known. If only those walls could talk ...

 

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FOOTNOTE: The Haermeyer family (father Wilhelm born 6/12/1919; mother Elfried born 13/4/1921; son Andreas born 20/2/1956) had come out to Australia aboard the Castel Felice on 20 June 1959. Daughter Elke was born in Australia on 16/6/1961. Their "guesthouse" business must've paid off because the whole family could afford to travel to Germany in 1967 and return aboard the Flavia on 20/12/1967. All this information is on record at the National Archives of Australia where it is also noted that Wilhelm Haermeyer left Australia once before on 8 December 1963. Jürgen Hanke's immigration records are also available from the archives:

 

Calling Rip Van Winkle!

 

 

It's getting close to twenty years - well, at least it feels that long - since I last heard from that modern-day Rip Van Winkle in Fairfield, Connecticut. Has he woken up yet to resume his usual idleness?

Maybe he's been asleep for so long, he's almost forgotten how to use the internet and email. Let's see what happens in response to this reminder.

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It's coming whether we like it or not

 

There was virtually no mention in the Budget of the proposed new tax for those with more than $3m in super (Div 296 tax). The Greens are mounting a final effort to get the Government to take even more drastic action but it remains to be seen whether they would risk derailing the measure altogether to secure their changes. To be honest, this all sounds to me like Division 296 tax is coming whether we like it or not.

The proposed Div 296 tax will apply from 1 July 2025, subject to it getting passed, to members with a total superannuation balance of over $3 million at the end of a financial year and will be calculated at 15% on the portion of your "earnings" (which for the first time in Australian tax law includes unrealised capital gains) above $3 million.

The portion is the percentage of your total superannuation balance at the end of the year which is over $3 million. The formula is total superannuation balance at the end of the year minus $3 million divided by your total superannuation balance at the end of the year. For example, if your total superannuation balance at the end of the year is $4.5 million, it’s $4.5 million minus $3 million, which is $1.5 million, divided by the $4.5 million. That gives you a proportion of a third.

And here comes the killer: the "earnings" that are going to be used for Div 296 tax is a complete new concept. It’s nothing like what we’ve ever seen before in Australian tax law. What we’re looking at is your total super balance at the end of the year minus your total super balance at the start of the year (with adjustments for withdrawals and contributions). Effectively, it's a tax on the unrealised gains on all your assets over the course of the year; e.g.if your total super balance is $4.5 million at the end of the year and your starting balance was $4 million, then your "earnings" is going to be $500,000.

The tax on these "earnings" (in addition to the already existing 15% tax on all real, i.e. realised earnings) is 15% times your proportion times your "earnings". Looking at a starting total super balance of 4 million at the beginning of the year, finishing total super balance of 4.5 million, the formula is 15% multiplied by a third multiplied by the $500,000 in "earnings" which gives you a Div 296 tax for that year of $25,000.

All this is being proposed as a fair and equitable tax, which begs the question as to what is equitable about taxing unrealised capital gains and not refunding negative losses (they may only be carried forward).

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Reading in the toilet

Continue reading here

 

No writer owned the arena of toilet more than Henry Miller. He read truly great books on the lavatory, and maintained that some, "Ulysses" for instance, could not be appreciated anywhere else. The environment was one that enriched substantial works - extracted their flavour, as he put it - while lesser books and magazines suffered.

Miller went so far as to recommend toilets for individual authors. To enjoy Rabelais, he advised a plain country toilet, "a little outhouse in the corn patch, with a crescent sliver of light coming through the door". Better still, he said, take a friend along, to sit with you for half an hour of minor bliss. How he would've loved the "plain country toilet" in my little beach shack at Pallarenda - click here - which was always stacked with lots of books (although I drew the line at taking a friend along):

 

The "plain country toilet" in my little beach shack at Pallarenda

 

Henry Miller's book "The Books in my Life" contains his great "Reading In the Toilet" essay. I've got a battered old copy of it which I've read and re-read probably more times than any other book - on and off the toilet.

 

 

A word of warning: as Henry Miller writes, "... if you go to the toilet to eliminate the waste matter which has accumulated in your system, you are doing yourself a disservice by utilizing these precious moments in filling your mind with 'crap'". Read only something really worthwhile. I've just ordered his worthwhile "Tropic of Cancer" - the toilet-roll edition!

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P.S. Reading on the toilet also changed my life - see here.

 

Riverbend's very own movie

 

 

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow."

Okay, keep on reading! I know you want to! Click here.

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The Colossus of Maroussi

Narration was read from Henry Miller's "The Colossus of Maroussi".
If you love Greece and its rich history, read it here

 

At my age there's little point in adding more to my bucket list; instead, I simply renamed it by replacing the 'b' with an 'f'. Still, I'm glad I've ticked off some of the important items such as when I took an educational tour of all the ancient Greek sites during the last winter I lived there.

I also visited Mycenae, the prehistoric Greek city in the Peloponnese which Homer celebrated as "broad-streeted" and "golden". My only regret is that I didn't know then of Henry Miller's landmark travel book "The Colossus of Maroussi" which would've made me fall in love with Greece all over again and perhaps kept me there for a little longer.

 

 

Enraptured by a young woman's account of the landscapes of Greece, the great American novelist Henry Miller set off to explore the Grecian countryside with his friend Lawrence Durrell in 1939. He describes drinking from sacred springs, staying in hotels that "have seen better days, but which have an aroma of the past", and nearly being trampled to death by sheep and encountering the flamboyant Greek poet Katsumbalis, who 'could galvanize the dead with his talk'. It's a lyrical classic of travel writing which represented an epiphany in Miller's life.

To quote from the book, "To be silent the whole day, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself", which is exactly what I will do today as I sit on the verandah and re-read this truly wonderful book.

And so can you: simply click here.

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My sailing days are over

 

 

It's already been more than six years since I gave away most of my sailing books to a passing yachtie - click here - including the most treasured ones, three books by Bernard Moitessier, one of which I recently discovered at Vinnies again: "The Long Way".

I brought it home with me, and have just spent several hours sitting in the tree-house high above the Clyde River, in the company of this amazing Frenchman by reading "The Long Way" from cover to cover.

 

 

My sailing days are over but I can dream - and so can you: click here!

 

 

I would live to read his memoirs next, "Tamata and the Alliance", which is online at archive.org, but there's no wifi in the treehouse.

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A new day and a new word in my vocabulary

 

One of the reason I enjoy going to the pool is that I can indulge in a long hot shower afterwards. To my horror, the water was icey-cold this morning! Being no longer in need of cold showers, I dispensed with it altogether and pulled out the old and almost-forgotten stick deorant.

I no longer remembered how to use it, so I looked at the instructions on the back of it which read, "Remove cap and push up bottom." Well, I can barely walk now but whenever I fart it makes the room smell very nice.

Which is just as well because my GP phoned to ask me to pop in as the results from my bone density scan and blood test had come in. He told me that my blood pressure and blood test both were fine, with the Vitamin D level slightly on the low side, but that the bone density test had revealed the onset of osteoporosis. He prescribed a six-monthly injection of Prolia® which the nurse administered there and then.

When I got home, I consulted Dr Google who told me that "Prolia® is a prescription medicine used to treat osteoporosis in women after menopause", so I am now confused about my sexuality as well.

Speaking of vocabulary, as I was resting my osteoporotic bones on the sundrenched verandah while listening to ABC Radio National, I heard the announcer use the phrase "on my behalf" when she quite obviously had meant to say "on my part". Have the two now become synonymous?

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43 Wackett Street, Cape Pallarenda

 

Advertisement from early 2015 Relaxed Beachside Living at It's [sic] Best!!!    *) If you are looking for a property where you can get away from the normal suburban hustle & bustle and still be close to quality schools, shopping and the CBD then moving to Pallarenda may be the change you need. Pallarenda is famous for its relaxed lifestyle where you and your family will feel like you are on holidays all year round. Where else can you walk to the beach in less than a couple of minutes. THE LOCATION * A couple of minutes walk to the beach * Pallarenda is only a very short drive to the CBD, Airport & all amenities * Great street appeal and backs onto common and natural bushland BEDROOMS & BATHROOMS * Fully airconditioned home (6 aircons) * Four bedrooms, all builtin * Master bedroom has ensuite and parents retreat/lounge * Light & airy spacious main bathroom, shower & plunge LIVING & KITCHEN * New kitchen, stainless steel oven, cooktop, rangehood, breakfast bar & pantry * Plenty of bench space, pot draws, large fridge space * Large lounge and dining room open out to undercover deck great for entertaining * 6M X 4M Deck overlooks backyard and park FEATURES * Polished Maryborough hardwood floors * Casement windows to capture the breezes * Downlights & stainless steel fans * New kitchen & new bathroom DOWNSTAIRS * Fully enclosed with parking for car * Laundry and workshop/storage space * Lockable storeroom THE YARD * 708m2 low maintenance block * Side access with room for a pool or shed If you want a lifestyle and sea change but still want to be minutes to the CBD then this Pallarenda property may be exactly what you have been looking for. What a great place to raise the kids and let them run free. Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 2 Land Size: 708 m² (approx)

 

I had bought this place just north of Townsville for $75,000 when I came back to Australia in 1985. Couldn't find work and left town again before I had even received my first electricity bill.

Then, after a series of unpleasant experiences with tenants, I sold the place in the late 80s for a bit over $90,000. It must've been jinxed because it sold again in 1992 for $122,000, in 2000 for $126,500, in 2006 for $285,000, and finally in 2015 for $420,000 (it had been advertised for $459,000) They did some nice renovating which cost a bit, but still.

I guess we all have stories like that to tell. If I hadn't bought the place and been saddled with a mortgage which meant I had to keep working to pay it off, I might've been tempted to drop out completely on the cash I had in my pocket and could now be walking barefoot around Bali with dreadlocks in my hair ☺

Difficult to say which is worse: barefoot in Bali with dreadlocks in my hair or barefoot at "Riverbend" and losing my hair? ☺

*) Never trust a real estate agent who doesn't know his apostrophes (or should that simply be: 'never trust a real estate agent' ?)